The ABC reports – Leaked NSA report reveals Australia-US spying operations during Bali conference
I thought it was well known that nations have intelligence services.
Many nations secretly plan harm to other nations – thats obvious from history – still going on now.
It would be worrying if Australia did not constantly seek out the most accurate information about other nations and their intentions.
Simple.
As an example of how tensions are not getting any less in the Asia Pacific region – just last week newspapers in China published information about the capability of the Chinese armed forces to strike at the USA with submarine mounted nuclear armed missiles – including this plain map.
Many of us can think back to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, associated collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War – nearly 25 years ago now.
There was a prevailing belief then that international tensions had eased.
I wonder now that with the rapid rise of China – not to mention parallel growth of Islamic extremism – the world is not getting any safer anytime soon.

People are acting all surprised when they really shouldn’t. Australia has been part of a 5 nation global surveillance agreement that dates to the end of WWII. Each country having responsibility for certain geographic regions.

Supposedly secret up to 2005, I’ve know about it for decades.

From wikipedia

GCHQ operates in partnership with equivalent agencies worldwide in a number of bi-lateral and multi-lateral relationships. The principal of these is with the United States (National Security Agency), Canada (Communications Security Establishment), Australia (Defence Signals Directorate) and New Zealand (Government Communications Security Bureau), through the mechanism of the UK-US Security Agreement, a broad intelligence sharing agreement encompassing a range of intelligence collection methods.

That is very interesting Philip. They are wise to be watchful considering all of the trouble spots around the globe and the maniacal leaders who grab control. Also, the USA was actually criticised after 9/11 that they hadn’t been keeping up tighter surveillance. A shame that it is necessary but now the way of the world unfortunately.